The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for controlling an acousto-optic modulator, particularly in connection with an image setter system.
In a conventional drum image setter for exposing printing plates, a plate is positioned around the surface of a drum and a 45xc2x0 spinning mirror (spinner) traverses the length of the plate along the axis of the drum (the xe2x80x9cslow scan directionxe2x80x9d). A laser beam is passed along the drum axis onto the mirrored surface of the rotating spinner which directs the beam along a circumferential line around the drum across the printing plate emulsion in the xe2x80x9cfast scan directionxe2x80x9d.
As the laser is passed over the printing plate surface, it is modulated to produce the half-tone dots on the plate for use by a printing press.
In comparison to the photographic emulsion used for film, the emulsions used for printing plates and thermal plates are less sensitive, requiring longer exposure times. The productivity of an image setter depends upon the image resolution and the exposure time for each pixel. Fast exposure times are desirable for increased productivity and therefore the spinner speed must be as high as possible. A typical spinner speed is 30000 rpm. Greater productivity can also be achieved by using multi-beam machines, that is having several lasers or one laser with multiple beams derived from it.
Each printing plate is normally used many times in image printing and the plate lifetime on the press depends on the exposure level of image recorded on the plate. If the exposure level is too low then the highlight dots quickly wear off and therefore printing plates are often overexposed to improve their life on the press. Overexposure can be achieved using higher powered lasers which are used to overexpose the plates in the minimum amount of time. Higher powered lasers are also required for low resolution images as the reduced amount of data allows faster scan speeds to be used and therefore more laser power is required to achieve the energy density in a shorter time.
In order to meet these power requirements, lasers having a power of several hundred milliwatts are desirable. Although modern lasers are often based upon laser diode technology, the direct modulation of laser diodes often does not provide enough power. A convenient solution to this problem is to use a continuous wave (CW) laser followed by an acousto-optic modulator (AOM) to amplitude modulate the power. The AOM requires modulation at the rate at which individual dots are placed on the printing plate. This is known as the dot clock rate and a typical frequency is 80 MHz.
In a conventional acousto-optic modulator, a collimated laser beam is focused into an acousto-optic crystal. To modulate the AOM in accordance with a pulsed data stream, the data stream is passed to an AOM driver which amplitude modulates a radio frequency (RF) signal. The modulated RF signal is then fed to a transducer which causes a pulsed acoustic wave to travel across a transverse direction of the crystal in accordance with the data stream pulses.
The focused beam passes through the crystal material whilst acoustic waves pass through the same material in the transverse direction normal to that of the beam. The acoustic wave acts as a diffraction grating which gives a first order diffracted beam at the Bragg Angle. This diffracted beam is passed through an aperture plate and is used to record the data on the printing plate. When the acoustic wave is off (not present) the beam is not diffracted and is stopped by the aperture. This method produces the desired modulation of the laser beam.
A number of problems are encountered in image setter systems of this type.
For high speed image setters, the xe2x80x9conxe2x80x9d period of the modulated laser beam must be as short as possible and two limitations which affect AOMs are the width of the beam waist in the crystal and the acoustic wave velocity in the crystal. The rise time is a function of the time it takes for the acoustic wave to traverse the beam waist. A wide beam waist increases the beam rise time, in addition to any inherent rise time in the combined data signal pulses. The beam waist can be reduced but this is limited by the fact that small beam waists can cause damage to the crystal and therefore a loss of efficiency. The propagation velocity of the acoustic waves is fixed by the material properties of the crystal and therefore cannot be changed to reduce the rise time.
At high speeds, effects due to the acoustic wave velocity may become noticeable. In a typical image setter system with a 30000 rpm spinner, the rise time of the modulated laser pulse is usually between 5 and 8 ns. A single dot at 96 dots per mm resolution has a typical width of 12 ns and therefore it can be seen that the rise time is a very significant fraction of the dot width for high resolution image dots.
In particular, three undesirable effects can be identified in the recorded data which result from the use of a spinner and/or an AOM.
The first effect is that high rotation speeds of the spinner cause the beam to be smeared over the printing plate surface. Therefore horizontal lines are widened due to smearing. In addition, because the plates are conventionally overexposed, horizontal dark lines are accentuated which increases the dot widths for modulated laser pulses in which the rise and fall times are significant.
A second problem in image setters with acousto-optic modulators is that the acoustic wave velocity of around 4000 metres per second is similar to that of the writing velocity of the laser across the printing plate. Typically this writing velocity is about 1000 metres per second. The travelling acoustic wave causes a shift of the beam spatially across the aperture during the rise and fall times of each laser pulse. Due to the rotation of the spinner, this spatial shift acts in the same direction as the spinner rotation at one part of its revolution and in the opposite direction at points diametrically opposed. This causes a resultant modulation of horizontal line widths in a sinusoidal manner with a frequency of 1 cycle per revolution of the spinner.
The third effect occurs because an off-axis diffracted beam is used to record the data. The diffracted beam has an inherent ellipticity caused by the beam diffraction at the Bragg angle with respect to the zero order beam of the acousto-optic diffraction grating. However, as an ellipse has two fold rotational symmetry, the frequency of this sinusoidal variation is two cycles per revolution. In combination with the spinner rotation, the resultant horizontal lines are again modulated in width sinusoidally but this time at a frequency of two cycles per revolution of the spinner. In addition, vertical lines are similarly affected by the ellipticity but the effect is 90xc2x0 out of phase with that of the corresponding horizontal lines.
Therefore these problems with conventional AOM based image setter systems, can cause a reduced correspondence between the original pulsed data representing the image and the image as recorded.
In accordance with a first aspect of the present invention we provide a method of modifying pulsed image data signals for controlling an acousto-optic modulator in an image setter system in which a radiation beam impinging on a record medium is modulated by the acousto-optic modulator, the method comprising:
modifying the pulse widths of the image data signals in accordance with predetermined parameters to improve the correspondence between pulsed image data and the data recorded on the record medium; and
supplying the modified pulsed signals to the acousto-optic modulator.
The present invention conveniently provides a method of addressing the earlier identified problems of AOM image setter systems by modifying the pulsed image data to counteract these problems. As a result, the data recorded on the record medium may more closely represent the original pulsed image data prior to modification.
In image setter systems where the image data are recorded using a radiation beam and where relative movement is provided between the radiation beam and the record medium, typically each pulse width is modified to compensate for the relative motion between the radiation beam and the record medium. This addresses the smearing effect caused by the relative motion of the beam and the record medium.
Although a number of radiation beam types may be used to record the data, preferably the radiation beam is a laser beam. As the smearing serves to broaden the horizontal lines of the image, the pulses are preferably reduced in width by a constant absolute value.
When the acousto-optic modulator uses acoustic waves propagating within a crystal to modulate the radiation beam, the pulse widths of the image data signals are preferably varied sinusoidally to compensate for the shift in the beam caused by the wave propagation.
The sinusoidal variations of these pulse width modifications will be preferably substantially equal in frequency to the rotational frequency of the spinner.
The problem of beam ellipticity may also be addressed using the present invention. Preferably when the beam output from the acousto-optic modulator is elliptical and the image recording is controlled using a rotating spinner, the pulse width of the image data signals is varied sinusoidally with a frequency substantially equal to twice the rotational frequency of the spinner.
For each sinusoidal modification of the pulsed image data signals, it will be appreciated that the amplitude and phase may be dependent upon the specific configuration of the scanner system used.
Typically the pulsed image data signals will represent digital data as a square wave, each square wave having a high level component, a low level component and rise and fall time components linking the high and low level components. Such square wave pulses may be modified in pulse width by expanding at least one of the rise time and fall time components such that a threshold level of amplitude may be defined which in general will lie between the high and low level components and will intersect the rise time and fall time components for each pulse.
By expanding one or both of the rise time and fall time components along a time axis, at least one of the high level or low level component""s of the pulses will be shortened in duration if the overall data rate is to be maintained. In general, the threshold level of amplitude will be defined such that the modified pulse width at the threshold level is substantially equal to the width of the high level components of the pulse as received before modification. This width may be defined as the distance along the time axis between the intersection points of the threshold level beneath the high level component, with the rise time and fall time components.
The threshold level may be raised or lowered between the high and low levels. If upon later conversion to a square wave output, the output pulse is ensured to have a high level component substantially equal in width to the width of the pulse at the threshold level, then altering the threshold level causes the pulse width of the square wave output to be modified.
A width modified square wave having a width substantially equal to the width of the high level component, will have a corresponding low level component either reduced or increased in length if the data rate is to be maintained.
For each modification that may be applied to the image data signals, for a particular image setter and corresponding point during the scan, the appropriate modification to be used may be derived from data contained in a look-up table.
In accordance with a second aspect of the present invention, we provide a radiation beam modulation system comprising:
an acousto-optic modulator for modulating a radiation beam impinging on a record medium; and
a signal processor arranged to modify pulsed image data signals for controlling the acousto-optic modulator, by modifying the pulse widths of the image data signals in accordance with predetermined parameters to improve the correspondence between pulsed image data and the data recorded on the record medium.
The acousto-optic modulator will typically comprise a crystal in which acoustic waves are propagated to diffract the radiation beam, producing at least one beam at the Bragg angle.
In general, the zero order radiation beam will be blocked by an aperture plate having an aperture arranged to allow passage through the plate of radiation diffracted at the Bragg angle.
Typically, the image data pulses will be square wave pulses having a high level component, a low level component and rise and fall time components in between the high and low levels. The system may further comprise an integrator to modify the pulses by expanding at least one of the rise and fall time components, and in addition may be provided with a comparator to compare the modified pulses with a reference signal.
Preferably, the amplitude of the reference signal with respect to the high and low amplitude levels of the square wave pulses will be used to control the modification of the pulse widths.
In turn, the reference level will preferably be controlled to effect the modifications of the pulse widths and the control of this reference level may be achieved in accordance with a look-up table. The beam modulator system may therefore further comprise a store in which the look-up table may be contained for controlling the reference signal in accordance with the predetermined parameters of the system.
In accordance with a third aspect of the present invention we provide an image setter system including a radiation beam source, a record medium support, a device for causing relative motion between the radiation beam and the record medium support and a beam modulator system according to the second aspect of the invention.
Typically, the device for causing relative motion between the beam and the record medium support is a spinner arranged to direct the radiation beam across the record medium.
The present invention therefore provides a convenient way of addressing the problems encountered in many image setter systems, which result in a reduced correspondence between the image data and the recorded data. In addition to drum image setter systems, it will be appreciated that the invention is also applicable to many other scanner systems, for example those having a xe2x80x9cflat-bedxe2x80x9d configuration.